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May 23, 2012June 29, 2016

Strange Grave: Fernwood Cemetery – Jamesburg, NJ

I came across this grave while wandering around Fernwood Cemetery. As you can see by the one is the distance, this gravestone was quite common. While it seems so familiar to me, I can’t quite place what nationality, if any, this stone is. For some reason my I feel like it’s Eastern Orthodox, and I know I’ve seen a headstone carved like this somewhere before (though to be honest it screamed German expressionism and instantly reminded me of “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari”), but I haven’t been able to find any pictures online to confirm or reject that.

If anyone knows what tradition this headstone hails from, please share it here. It’s very beautiful and striking and I’d like to read more about it’s unique shape and the fact that the name is scrawled on it, not nicely blocked and carved, as we’re so used to seeing. I must have walked around this stone about five times, just trying to see it from every angle, and every angle became more beautiful and yet more slightly unsettling with every pass.